Learn Mentalism
Whether you want to blow people’s minds with uniquely stunning tricks or need a professional and personal edge when it comes to reading and dealing with people, you’ve got to learn mentalism.
If you’re wondering what I mean, it’s simple. Mentalism has three crucial pillars that make up the art – misdirection/suggestion, sleight of hands and pure body language reading.
While the first two are excellent for interesting tricks and magic performances, the last is an extremely useful skill not only for entertainment but for every other facet of your life. You’ll be able to read people like a book by looking at their expressions, reactions and general body language, knowing exactly how they truly feel and, for the lack of a better word, what they think.
Mentalism is real, useful and astonishingly powerful so let’s take a look at the best ways you can learn it!
How to Study Mentalism
Learning mentalism isn’t a deeply difficult task as some might tell you but it does require a tremendous amount of practice and dedication. While studying the theory of both mentalism itself and of the tricks can be quite fast and easy, putting it all into practice and performing them like a true professional can take a lot of time. You need finesse, confidence, some acting skills and great hand control and these are all things that only practice can deliver.
Now, you need to start with the basics. Studying mentalism can be split into two things – studying the techniques and the art itself (microexpressions reading, suggestion and misdirection, forces and so on) and studying specific tricks and abilities (mind-reading, illusion, hypnosis and all the tricks that can be performed by using them).
This is an essential step and thankfully there are a lot of superb resources to make it easier for you to learn, such as mentalism books and mentalism courses.
After you’ve mastered the basic theory of the art, you need to put it into practice. You’ve gotta train. Let’s take a look at how you can do this.
Mentalist Training
As cliche as it sounds, there’s no secret to this part – just practice, practice and practice some more. Your hand movements need to be smooth and flawless, your body language reading skills need to be effortless and accurate, your performance and acting skills need to be subtle and effective and last but not least, you need to be confident.
Although being confident isn’t a switch you can turn on, it’ll come naturally to you as you get better and better with training so just don’t give up and keep giving your best every time. These are a few tips to accelerate your training:
- Pick a few great tricks that you enjoy, give them your own personal twist and start performing them for yourself in front of the mirror and for your friends and family. If you’re looking for some good ones you can take a look at these mentalism tricks
- Watch how the pros do it and mimic their best traits such as subtle movements, clever misdirections and charming interactions with the audience
- Apply your people reading skills to your everyday life – carefully read everyone that you interact with from your family to a cashier and everyone else you encounter. Take notice of their expressions, feelings and how they react. Try to uncover when someone’s lying.
If you want a more in-depth guide that lets you know more useful tips and tricks, be sure to give my “How to Become a Mentalist” article a read.
Mentalism Tutorial
For a step-by-step tutorial on how to learn and perform mentalism and excellent tricks, be sure to get the fantastic guide below:
It’s expertly written, as detailed as it can be and guaranteed to take you from zero to hero as fast as possible.
Conclusion
Easy to learn but hard to master, mentalism is one of the very best schools of “magic” and psychology that you can take on. Its beauty comes from the fact that you don’t actually “fool” people but use real information instead to achieve what is perceived by the audience to be a nearly supernatural ability of mind-reading, among others.
It’s a joy to perform, stunning to watch and useful in everyday life in a way that no other technique is (as I’m sure you’ve seen by now from shows such as “Lie to Me” and “The Mentalist”).
So waste no more time and get to work – greatness awaits!
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5 comments
Pat Ford March 31, 2019
Finally a good source of info so I can actually learn mentalism. So many sub-par sites out there, glad yours popped up. Thanks for being a tremendous help with my studies Mike.
Mike April 1, 2019
It's my pleasure to help Pat, thanks for stopping by and be sure to leave a comment if you need anything - I'll be here!
Raul Valdez February 26, 2019
Got into the Master Mentalism tutorial you recommend here and it's a treasure. Fantastic information and very easy to understand, loving it coupled with the great content you offer here, it's the perfect pair!
Terry Beck December 17, 2018
You wouldn't believe how helpful this is for a rookie like me Mike, thanks for sharing these tips, your whole website is amazing.
Mike December 18, 2018
Hey Terry, no problem. I'm glad you're liking the website, I do my best!